Theme: Family Marriage Love – in Eastern Orthodox Perspective
Friday December 7th 2012. 9.00 am to 6.00pm.
Sophia Institute. UTS. 3041 Broadway (at 121st St.) New York. NY 10027. Registration 8.00 am — 9.00 am
Call for Academic Papers
(20 minutes duration –with a prospect of publication in the Acts of the Conference) For the Fifth Annual Conference of the Sophia Institute, we call to our scholarly family foroffers of Academic Short Paper Titles related to the Conference Theme: Family Marriage and Love in Eastern Orthodox Perspective
Titles, please, with short Abstracts, from those with a Master’s degree or above, to: Prof. John McGuckin jam401@columbia.edu before Oct. 30th 2012.
The Conference will take place on the campus of Union Theological Seminary (3041 Broadway @ 121st St, New York. NY 10027). On Friday, December 7th, 2012.
The day-long gathering (9.am to 6.00 pm), will focus on the various ways the Eastern Orthodox Church, and broader Orthodox cultures, over past centuries, and in recent times, have understood mutual love, the bond and ritual of marriage, and the role of the family.
Orthodoxy’s experience of marriage and familial life has been extensive at a folk level across its history, and centrally important as a cultural and historical element in the foundation of Orthodox identities; but the theological, doctrinal, spiritual and ethical, elaboration of these critical themes has been sadly deficient; lacking the poets, theologians, and married lay voices necessary to articulate it as prolifically, or as competently, as the Eastern Church has narrated its monastic experience. Historically, children have often been invisible. It is long overdue to have a sustained reflection on marriage and family love in Orthodox perspectives, and our conference proceedings and the book to issue from them, hope to serve that end. Approaches are invited from historical, patristic, theological, ethical, ethnographic, philosophical, cultural and literary angles.
The Sophia Annual Conferences are aimed at producing scholarly volumes on major themes of Orthodox life and Culture that require deeper elaboration in our modern world. We believe that the present theme will be of great interest, because of its outstanding importance, and will continue the ground-breaking approach characteristic of previous Sophia Conferences.